April 17, 2011

I know there are others far more worthy of tribute but here's what you might call a "feel good" article in Ha'aretz by Gideon Levy about Israeli Foreign Monster, Avigdor Lieberman:

Take a good look at the tone of the public debate over the attorney general's decision to indict Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman...

Forget the suspicions against him, forget that he has been convicted of assaulting a child; we're dealing here with a mediocre, destructive politician who has a very meager record after 20 years of work. It's true he has translated hate-mongering into electoral success, riding the murkiest of waves.... It's even true he terrifies the prime minister and is notorious throughout the world.

[H]e is surely Israel's worst foreign minister ever. The country's international standing has slumped to an all-time low on his watch. His diplomatic activity has brought down our relationship with Turkey and worsened Latin America's stance on Israel.

He has been completely useless to his electorate: There is still no civil marriage in Israel, and the civil-union bill ended up as a leftover law, relevant only to a handful of people without religion. He wanted to bring down Hamas, and even insisted on adding a clause on this to the coalition agreement. Two years later, Hamas is stronger than ever, certainly stronger than Lieberman. Some of the dangerous anti-democratic bills he has flaunted have thankfully failed - the investigation of leftist NGOs, for instance.

His actual involvement in foreign policy is small, his trips abroad are fruitless for the most part, his suggestions for territorial exchanges with the Palestinians have been shelved, like so many other proposals of his.

Even sophistication, another quality attributed to him, is hard to find. Registering a company making millions to one's daughter? Please. Composure? There is none. Courage? When did he last go against the flow, when did he fight for anything? He can only ride populist waves, incite and foment the passions of the weak against the even weaker. You don't need courage for that. He's an inarticulate politician who has never made an impressive speech, who does not have one achievement to his name, yet all his terms as a minister are seen here as a success story.